The Lord's Right Read online

  Amber hadn’t had a chance to admire the beast before, but she was thoroughly entranced now. He was a fine piece of horseflesh, and she wished he was her own. She never dreamed she’d have a chance to ride him, but soon found herself atop the thing, if at a terribly awkward angle. He’d lifted her so that she wasn’t astride or even side saddle in front of him or behind. She was lying horizontal over the horse like he was going to wallop her as they rode, with her bottom facing south and her head facing north across the saddle!

  Luckily, he kept his mount at a slow pace, or she would have lost what little contents she’d had of her evening meal, but that wasn’t the worst of it by far, because she was naturally presenting him with a perfect target, which he was not wont to resist in any way. So as the horse picked his way delicately through the English countryside, she could hear the echoes of her own punishment, for what she wasn’t quite sure, ringing loud and true back to her own ears.

  She only kicked her legs once. Piers stopped the horse and took the very ends of the reins, hauled her tunic up and flailed her bottom mercilessly with them. “Do not kick this horse, Amber. The next time you do it, I’ll let my soldiers each have a turn at spanking you themselves.”

  Amber was stunned into instant obedience at that threat.

  She recognized the direction they were going, but kept hoping they weren’t going to end up where she thought they were going to. When he finally pulled the horse up short, and a stable boy came out to cool him off and put him away, they were where she’d feared: Fordwick Castle.

  It wasn’t much of a castle any more, which was why there was a new one being built, but this was the closest thing they had, so they were making do with it for now. His men would be joining him by the morning, and they would be at least a thousand strong to protect this area for King William.

  He helped her down from his big charger and she looked around hesitantly. It was the first time she’d been out of her little village, and it made her feel much smaller than she liked. Even though it was the middle of the night, the place bustled with activity.

  “I want you to work in the gardens here, Amber. We have need of a woman who is good with medicines to see to the needs of the soldiers and others who work here. You shall have a room in the castle, and in the new castle when it’s built. You’ll be working for Mrs. Tulane, who will show you around in the morning.” He had an idea that giving her something productive to do might keep her from stealing wineskins and slashing stirrups, too, as well as wandering the forest against her father’s wishes. That poor man must’ve had his hands full with her. He’d seen two other girls at their table. All Piers could wish for him was that his other two daughters were more docile than his first.

  Amber didn’t know what to say, and then she imagined she didn’t have much choice about what to say. She was here, and he was her lord. He wasn’t going to just let her say no and go home.

  He took her to the kitchen and introduced her to Mrs. Tulane, who seemed a nice woman, and then he disappeared. Amber wondered if she’d ever see him again, to say nothing of her father and her family.

  It was a strange thing to have been plucked from one’s home and transported far away, but her love of plants was strong enough that she settled in all right to her new surroundings, although life here was certainly different from what living with her family had been. She and Mrs. Tulane got along all right, although the woman could be a bit bossy, and she was already getting to be well known as the person to come to with wounds and medical problems. Piers’ men had arrived, and Fitzwilliam had come to thank her for treating him, which she felt very awkward about, since she’d been the cause of his misery in the first place.

  Troy had taken to tagging along with Fitz when he came to see her. Amber did not like Troy at all, but Troy made it very clear that he was quite interested in her. She was doing her best to fend him off, and trying to do it politely, instead of just pushing him into the broken down fountain he was sitting in front of, which was full of stagnant water and was her first instinct. He had a tendency to be very free with his hands, which she detested. She hated being manhandled, especially by him. He reeked of alcohol most of the time, and his breath smelled of sick, or worse.

  When he reached up to touch her breast for the twentieth time, that was it. She had had enough of him and his forward ways, and she did what she’d wanted to do: she pushed him backwards, into the fountain. Like Sir Piers had said about Fitz, it was probably the first time he’d met with water in a long time, brackish or not.

  Funny, Amber couldn’t say that about Sir Piers. He always smelled good, like a man should, usually of horses and leather, but not offensively so. Like he wasn’t afraid of a bath or a bar of soap. She didn’t know why he popped into her head at such a strange moment, except perhaps because of the way he was laughing from atop Tygan at the sight of Troy standing there, sopping wet, weeds on his head and trying to wring the muck and water out of his clothes.

  Troy started to run after Amber, with a deadly glint in his eye, until Piers got down and stood in front of her. She annoyingly, kept moving away from him, that ever present little knife in her hand, daring Troy to come at her, and balancing her weight from the balls of one foot to the other in a practiced fighting stance. “Stay put behind me, Miss, or I’ll punch you myself!” he roared, and she obeyed, however reluctantly.

  “I’m going to whip her good!” Troy screamed, looking around for something with which to accomplish the task. “Pushing her betters into the muck and mire! She needs to be taught a lesson, that wench! She has thoughts above her station!”

  After turning around to Amber and disarming her with practiced and insulting ease, and tucking her child’s blade well away from her on his person, Piers drew himself to his full height and advanced on Troy, who, although a good soldier, was no match for the master. He fairly cringed up at Piers.

  “You spread this word through the men and all that will listen: if anyone thinks that Amber needs a lesson of any kind, they’re to come to me, and I’m the only one that’s to deliver it, is that understood? She’s here under my auspices.”

  Troy looked fairly apoplectic. Piers had never been known to take much interest in any woman. Oh, he had Josette waiting for him in France that all the men knew about, but everyone also knew that he didn’t care a whit for her one way or another. The gossip was that he’d never cared for any woman, since his mother had never cared for him. No woman ever could, or ever would, touch his heart, no matter how beautiful or accomplished, and all of them, in the French court, had tried.

  None of them had succeeded. He’d tried and tasted all of them, but left each and every one of them flat. Josette had merely come the closest to catching him. He would marry her in a lavish ceremony, shower her with gifts, and get children on her. But he wouldn’t love her, and she had had to accept that. He’d made it excruciatingly clear.

  “Amber, come,” Piers said, not sparing Troy another look as he turned to walk into the main hall of the castle, which was really the only livable part remaining.

  She disliked immensely being called to like a dog, but knew she had just been saved, so she held her tongue. Mrs. Tulane saw her crossing the open hall behind him and said nothing, nor did any of the fifty or so other servants that saw her parading up the huge staircase behind him.

  They ended up in the room he was using as his bedroom, which contained a bed that was too small for him, as they all were, until he had the one he used at his home in France, a custom made one, shipped here, and he wouldn’t do that until the permanent castle was built. It had an enormous fireplace across from the bed, and a wall of windows at the end opposite the door. There were what had probably been gorgeous tapestries on the walls to absorb moisture and warm the place up, but they had long since faded and become ratty looking. Still, Amber thought it must’ve been a wonderful place in its prime, and even the tiny room she’d been given was luxurious compared to the small pallet she slept on next to her sisters at home.


  Chapter Three

  “So, Miss Cooper, do you need to be whipped, as Mr. Seville insists?” he asked, pouring himself some wine from the sideboard, then sinking down into an enormous chair in front of the roaring fire, and motioning her over to stand beside him.

  “No, Sir.”

  He smiled. He seemed to do a lot of that around her, and he liked it. Piers hadn’t realized, until he met her, how little he smiled. “Tell me something, Amber, had you drawn your knife since I’d dropped you off here?”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “So it’s something I inspire in you, hmm?”

  She didn’t know quite what to say to that, especially not without getting herself into even more trouble than she already seemed to be with him.

  “I’m teasing. Why did you push Troy into the fountain?” He knew the answer, because he’d been watching them for a short while before making his appearance, but he wanted to hear it from her.

  Unlike most of the people he called before him, Amber didn’t toady well. She didn’t look at her feet or mumble while she spoke, she didn’t plead or wheedle. She simple said what had happened, and damn the consequences. She was a very refreshing voice, if a sometimes annoying one with a sharp little knife and a tendency to play tricks. “He was touching me, Sir.”

  “Yes, he was, wasn’t he,” Piers agreed. “And you didn’t like that at all, did you?”

  “No, Sir.”

  “Not at all? Not even a little?”

  She didn’t hesitate, not once, in her answers, which gave him his answer, even without her words. “No, Sir.”

  Piers stood, leaving the glass on the sideboard and returning to her. He tipped her head back and claimed her mouth the way he’d wanted to but hadn’t admitted to himself since she’d startled him on his horse weeks ago. He’d set her to working in the gardens so that he could keep her around and watch her clandestinely. He liked her more than he wanted to, although she was a thorn in his side. Mrs. Tulane thought she was much too outspoken. And she had a tendency to wander into the woods when she was supposed to be working, not that the older lady could ever say that she’d left anything undone, though, and she was autocratic when she tended to people, not taking into account their station in the household and changing her manner or tone to accommodate them.

  But he liked her, so he kept her on.

  Now at least two of his men were at odds over her, perhaps more, he didn’t know.

  But then, he did know about at least one more.

  Him. He wanted her.

  Her mouth was sweet and minty. He knew she often chewed mint; he’d smelled it on her breath, which was a damned sight better than what he usually smelled on women’s breath. Piers bent her backwards, over his arm, making her squeal, but not letting her up. He loved a woman in this position. It naturally left her breasts accessible, and they found themselves much more vulnerable, feeling like they were going to fall, so they were more likely to cling to anything solid, which was always going to be him.

  Amber had never felt anything like this. She’d never been kissed before; no boy or man would have dared in the village for fear they’d be sliced open from throat to nuts. But this man more than dared. His tongue plundered her mouth, setting fires in its wake, confusing her, making her forget that she even had a weapon that she might try to stop him with—making her like it and want more.

  Once she was at that point, when her arms were just beginning to creep around those broad shoulders and his mouth had just settled over the thin material covering her breasts, he stood suddenly, bringing her with him.

  “I think I agree with Mr. Seville, Amber. You do need a whipping, if for no other reason than that he’s right. You can’t go around pushing your betters into fountains, even if they have taken liberties that they shouldn’t. If there should be a next time, you’ve my permission to defend yourself and get away to tell me about it, but you must do your best not to harm or humiliate the man.” He was really thinking only of her. Troy had no relatives with power, but if it had been Fitz instead of Troy, with the connections that Fitz had—not that he would ever use them, and he wouldn’t, because he wasn’t that kind of a lad. She could find herself on the wrong end of a rope if she did that to the wrong man some time.

  Still craving his lips, and hating herself for it, but what’s more so, hating him for making her want him, she found herself unceremoniously arched over the arm of that big chair in front of the fire, with her tunics raised, bottom bared, a thin leather whip that was more akin to a tawse in his hand. He saw her looking at it and said, “Ah, we borrowed this from the Scots. It works wonders on recalcitrant women.”

  Her face was buried in the thick cushion, and the chair was so big that she couldn’t even reach back, over the arm, to defend the ample, vulnerable target that her raised buttocks provided him. She was completely helpless, to say nothing of the fact that he was standing just to the side of her that she would have rolled towards to get out of the chair, so that escape route was blocked, too.

  She had never cried so much at being punished as she did with this man, and it was absolutely humiliating. Why with him, of all people, the person she would most want to be strong around? He was the enemy, after all, despite the fact that he’d gotten her a job and a nice room to live in. That didn’t make her like him any better. Especially since here she was, getting her bottom blistered for no reason other than trying to defend herself from one of his men, who was taking liberties that he oughtn’t.

  And she cried like a baby each time those nasty, split pieces of leather snapped against her naked flesh. He wielded them like it was something he’d done every day of his life, with intent to cause as much pain as possible, making sure they landed at the peak of the stroke, and at the point on her upturned rump that was going to hurt the worst. Amber was already on her tip toes, because of the height of the chair and awkwardness of her position, and her balance was precarious, so she couldn’t even flail her legs up to defend the tender backs of her thighs, which he also scourged thoroughly, until the entire backside of her, from stem to stern, was a fiery almost purplish red.

  Then he made her get up, straighten her clothes, and kiss the tawse. He saw that she wanted to hesitate, but she recovered and didn’t. Piers presented her the hand that had chastised her, and she kissed that, also, valiantly resisting the urge to bite it instead. He gave her the tawse, and told her into what drawer in the sideboard she should tuck it. “That’s where it will reside, Amber. I have thought that it will get much use.” He had taken up his position back in his chair, and motioned for her to come stand next to him again.

  “I want you to stand in front of me.”

  She did as she was told.

  “Bend over.”

  Bend over? Why did he want her to bend over? Was he going to punish her more? She wasn’t at all sure she could take any more.

  But Amber did as she was ordered, for fear of just that. He reached out and pulled up her clothes, exposing her seared thighs and bum, and then he told her to spread her legs apart.

  She’d never been in a situation like this before, where she’d felt quite this powerless. She grew up knowing she could out run, out hunt, and overpower most of the boys in her area, and once she’d established that, few of them came around her. She’d not had to submit much in her life, except perhaps to her father, and this man was far from her father. He was a stranger to her, and he was requiring her to do something she had no interest in doing, yet she had an obligation to obey him. And she knew that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t hesitate to send her back to the sideboard to fetch that damnable leather thing again.

  The tears she’d worked so hard to dry up were returning again, but she did her best not to let him see that as she did as he told her to do, and moved her legs a bit apart. The tunics weren’t very far up her legs, so they prevented her from spreading them very far. His voice was surprisingly gentle, almost insultingly so, when he said, “Amber, pull your tunics up to your waist. I want to s
ee your lovely punished bottom. And then spread your legs well apart for me, and bend over.”

  She’d never wanted to beg anyone for anything in her life, but she desperately wanted to beg him not to make her do this now.

  But she didn’t. She stood up and took a deep breath, then did exactly, to the letter, what he asked.

  Jesu, she was magnificent. And Piers wasn’t just referring to the glorious portrait in front of him at all, although it definitely was that. She’d submitted beautifully. He could tell that she hated him for every second of it, and that it had been sublimely hard for her, but she’d done it anyway. He knew that if he hadn’t taken that blade away from her, that he might well be dead at the first given opportunity, and he might well still be in the future, but he’d take his chances with the little lady. What was life worth without a little risk?

  He leaned forward, and she did, too, until he cautioned low, “Stand still.” His callused fingertips not really even able to discern the fineness of the creamy skin on the inside of those thighs, which he decided right then and there that he would definitely need to see strapped in the near future, maybe the next time she was naughty.

  And he knew, with Amber, there would always be a next time.

  Piers let his fingers delve gently between the folds that offered themselves so eagerly to him, dipping himself into the creaminess he had been hoping to find, but wasn’t at all sure would be there. Some women warmed to a punishment in a way that others didn’t. They didn’t want to. No one really wanted their hind end roasted as he’d just done to hers. It hurt, and it hurt badly; they cried the same tears, experienced the same level of agony that anyone else did. Still, to an infrequent few, it triggered something in them, something primal and pleasurable that mingled with the pain, and she was, as he’d hoped, one of those rarest of gems.